Out of Beta
by VacuumTan
Summary: In which Haruka develops a game to gain his favourite Let's Player's attention. Somewhat AU-ish HaruTaka-oneshot;


It had taken him months.

First, he had needed a kickstart- and by God, people out there weren't as generous as he had expected. Then, he had bought the software, although it had taken him about a week to get acquaintanced with it. Luckily, he'd had the storyboard planned out already, so the scripting hadn't taken too long. Finally, he spent forever on making it presentable- a lot of untextured dummy polygon-structures had remained until the early beta and he somehow just couldn't entirely fix the issues with the frame rate, yet.

But in the end, he had still managed to get something acceptable done- sure, it was a bit... _cranky_ here and there, and the sound scape was the epitome of 'lacking' (he would have to ask his friend who was good at composing sometime), but he was still proud of his little masterpiece. Yes, he had finally leapt into the world of 3D-game engineering.

And that was that.

After he was done with the initial developement, he could finally publish it. Well, at least, that was how it was supposed to go, in everyone else's book. But he wasn't everyone else, and his sole reason for even making this game had been something else entirely.

With shaking fingers, he opened up a new mail, staring at it for a few seconds before resolutely typing an address that he had written down on a little post-it stuck to his desk. It had been there for about three months and, admittedly, he felt a little awkward about it, but with a clear goal in mind, it didn't matter too much. All's well that end's well, as they say.

_Dear Lightning Dancer Ene-_

No, he couldn't write it like that. It sounded more like a somewhat formal letter. Plus, he didn't know her personally. He only knew her voice and her amazing skill at gaming. Nothing else. So, he had to settle for something else.

_Hello Lightning-_

No, no, her whole nickname sounded strange in this context. Should he just call her 'Ene'? After all, she _did_ start every episode by greeting her audience with the phrase, "How's everybody doing? This is your girl, Ene, speaking!", so that was probably what she wanted to be referred to as.

Hopefully.

In the end, he settled for a somewhat casual approach.

_Hi, Ene!_

_My name is Haruka and I'm an indie-developer. I've just finished my first game and it's still kind of unpolished, but I would really, really appreciate it if you'd played it. You don't have to do a Let's Play of it, but I adore you and your videos and would love it if you could give me feedback on it. You're also the first person to receive it, so I'll have to include an attachment to this mail containing the game in a .zip-file._

_I hope you can enjoy my work at least a little and thank you in advance._

He really did include a .zip, though he did add a little file containing his Skype name in case Ene wanted to give him feedback like that. And, taking one final, deep breath, he hit the send-button, watching as the window "message sent" popped up on his screen.

There was no backing out anymore, now.

* * *

Haruka hadn't received any message from his gameplay-idol during the following two weeks. One part of him wanted to believe that she was just busy with other games and people while the other had remained realistic enough to accept the fact that she wouldn't acknowledge his game or that it had been too horrendous to even comment on.

But then, one day when he was browsing the web while listening to Kisaragi Momo's newest single, something came up. Amongst the hottest videos of the past twenty-four hours was, unsurprisingly, Lightning Dancer Ene's newest video. But what _was_ surprising was that the thumbnail seemed oddly familiar. And so, he opened the link in a new tab.

"Ah, good day! How's everybody doing? This is your girl, Ene, speaking!", the familiar voice of Haruka's favourite Let's Player chirped. "Today, I've actually got something special for you guys! You're seeing this game here for the first time ever, since the guy who made this kindly sent it to me to showcase it. Big shout out to you, if you're watching this!"

Haruka held his breath, his heart pounding and his head spinning. Blindly, he gripped the edge of his desk, willing away the sick feeling in order to prevent himself from having an attack. Then, Ene spoke again, allowing him to focus all his attention on her. "So, I've played like, two minutes of it before, and it seems really awesome. But, well, let's just cut to the chase, alright?"

And cutting to the chase she did. Starting a new game, the first cut scene came up. Haruka stared. Was that really the game he had made? It seemed so far away now. "The graphics are really neat. He wrote that it was his first game. Could you actually believe it?", Ene laughed as she started walking when she finally could. "The controls are a bit rusty, but hey. I'm just wondering what exactly this is. Like, is it a horror-game?"

He shook his head a little. Basically, it was a short little horror-adventure type of game with the setting that the world would end in one day, plot-twist at the end included. A major part of the gameplay experience was meant to make the player choose things and manage their time properly. It might have been a bit hard, actually, Haruka thought.

After twenty minutes of frantically screaming for her character to hurry up, Ene ended the episode on a cliffhanger, laughing awkwardly. "Tell me if you want to see more of this, because I sure enjoyed it!", she said. "Well, see you next time, then!"

And with that, it was all over. Haruka slumped in his seat, sighing in relief. Ene had liked his game. She had played it to begin with, but she also really enjoyed it. He couldn't help but laugh airily, smiling brightly as he opened up his e-mail to send her his thanks, only to discover that there was one unread message waiting for him already.

_Go online in skype_

Of course he did just that. And once he had logged in, a window popped open.

_enomoto_takane6: "hey haruka tis is ene plz add ok"_

He had trouble keeping the giddy feeling of having his favourite, famous Let's Player as a Skype-contact as he clicked the 'add' option, but it hardly mattered that moment for she was online and had already written a small message.

_Takane: hey how r u ^^_

Briefly, he noted how her name automatically said 'Takane'. He wondered if he should change it to 'Ene', but then decided that it was probably a privilege to even know her real name. And, at least he did suppose so, her real name was a lot nicer than her nickname.

_Haruka: I'm fine, thank you. I just finished watching your video... You're way too kind!_

_Takane: ur gaem is gr8! Is dis rly ur 1__st__ one?_

_Haruka: You flatter me too much! _

_Takane: w8 cn we plz call? Rly h8 writin_

He laughed a bit, maybe because her horrible spelling was testimony to that, but hit the call-button nonetheless.

It was an extraordinary feeling, hearing that voice directed at him.

* * *

Over the next two months or so, Takane and Haruka became the best of e-pals. While Takane was actually a lot grumpier than she let on in her videos, she was still fun and easy to talk to. She often told Haruka how she found his generally upbeat attitude annoying, but in the end, she always ended up calling.

They shared a lot about their lives, like Haruka's reason for not going to university ("My health really is poor, unfortunately."), Takane's social anxiety ("They just don't get how hard I'm trying and instead, they look at me all judgemental!") and how one could make a living as a Let's Player ("About three hours of editing, each day?" "That sounds awfully tough." "It is.") but also insignificant details like their favourite colours, their parents' jobs and so on. And after a few late-night co-op gaming sessions, they decided to meet up, for they found out that they were from the same city, even though they lived at two opposite ends.

A Sunday it was, in a small café somewhere close to center. Haruka had awkwardly described his appearance to Takane, who had, in turn, done the same. And after standing in front of the café for about five minutes, the sun shining down warmly on him, Haruka found a finger tapping his shoulder and he turned around.

Now, to say that he had imagined the legendary Lightning Dancer Ene to look a lot different wouldn't be a lie- but Takane wasn't that far off, still. She was a short girl with a slight frame, long black hair and tired eyes that glared almost naturally. Still, when their eyes met, Haruka smiled and extended his hand politely and Takane took it, with a slight blush and a trembling, formal introduction.

From then on, the two of them weren't just friends who spoke to each other online, but also friends who met up on weekends to spend time together. Takane went with Haruka to his checkups at the hospital since it was close to her house and in turn, the boy went with her to the park and drew portraits of her that she, with a flushed face and an awkward stutter, would take home and hide under her pillow.

And when friendship hadn't been enough anymore, well, then it was Haruka who asked Takane out. Naturally, she couldn't have been happier, for she just hadn't been able to say her feelings out loud like that, shy as she was, at heart.

The Let's Plays they did together from then on got a little awkward, though.

The viewers didn't mind it, though.

* * *

**A/N: LET ME EXPLAIN!**

**So, yeah, I've had that real cool scenario where Takane is a LPer and Haruka is her loyal fanboy and starts making a game so she will notice him. She does, they get together, yadda, yadda... in my head. And when I wrote it like this, it turned out to be **_**downright shit**_**.**

**Please, someone, pick this up and make this a **_**good**_** fic, okay? I NEED THIS. LINK IT TO ME. DO IT.  
**


End file.
